Philadelphia Union: The ole onionbag (mailbag) week four

It’s that time of the week again where I answer fan questions about the state of the Philadelphia Union and anything else that catches your fancy.

The woes continue for the Philadelphia Union and that is reflected by this week’s questions in the mailbag.

You can view the last edition of the Philadelphia Union mailbag here

There were a few questions about who to blame for the woes of the Philadelphia Union which I would like to bundle and answer in tandem.

The first is from Tallahassee Union (a Son’s of Ben group in Florida) – Bigger issues: Coach, sporting director, tactical inflexibility, lack of cash, or all of the above?

Next is from Dooper Scooper (a Union fan account on twitter) – 5 games into the season, do you place more blame on Earnie or Curtin for the lack of results?

This is a tough one to answer in a mailbag format so I actually did a full-length write-up on this issue. In a nutshell, Earnie Stewart should be taking heat for his dismal recruitment and here’s why,

"Most of the offseason additions haven’t had a positive impact on the team this year and the hole of Tranquillo Barnetta’s departure hasn’t been filled. While these are problems, they are Earnie Stewart problems and not Jim Curtin problems."

The departure of Tranquillo Barnetta isn’t being spoken about enough and with the Vincent Nogueira hole being filled by Haris Medujanin, the hole left by Barnetta looms large over the Philadelphia Union. Because of that, I’d place the blame at 60 percent Stewart, 40 percent Curtin.

Jason Hannigan steps back from the performance of the team to ask – Has a CTO been narrowed down? and As a follow-up, what would be your Philadelphia Union inspired ink?

The last update on the CTO search stated that the Philadelphia Union are in the semifinal stage of the search with 13 applicants still in the running. The applicants left are Northern Liberties Tattoo, Bone Daddy’s Tattoo, Omkara Tattoo, True hand Society Tattoo, Art Machine Productions, Philadelphia Tattoo Collective, Dave Shoemaker Tattoo, Myke Chambers, Davidian Tattoo, Dan Czar Tattoo, Kristopher Kolodziej, Chris Peters Tattoo, and Megan Kovac.

The next stage in the search will see this list be narrowed down to a final five based on player input as well as site visits from Doug Vosik. As more updates become available I will share them.

As far as my Union inspired ink, I’d probably keep it simple with the new snake concept from the Son’s of Ben gear wrapped around a lightning bolt or something like that (don’t hold me to this).

Our next question is from Larry Henry – Zero wins so far. Do you blame that more so on the inability to consistently score goals or allowing too many at the back?

Scoring by far. In MLS a team can win games with a crap defense as long as they score goals which was shown by last year’s incarnation of the Philadelphia Union. The defense was terrible but they were among the top scoring teams in MLS. The result was a playoff appearance. A good attack also takes pressure off of the defense because they don’t have to get a clean sheet each time out to preserve a win.

Michael Yarem asks – Who is tied tighter to the 4-2-3-1 formation, Curtin or Stewart?

Due to how the youth teams and Bethlehem play, I’d have to say it’s Stewart. It’s clear that the formation is a systematic thing for the Philadelphia Union because they want to get every player in the system comfortable in the formation.

Will Margerum asks – Do owners have long and short-term goals or are they content just to field a team each year?

I can’t claim to know what makes Jay Sugarman tick but from meeting him and his actions so far, he isn’t an owner who is only concerned with his bank account. Sugarman wants to build a winner in Chester but the reality is that he doesn’t have the funds that most owners possess. For the team to make moves in the summer, Sugarman had to sell shares in his own company to foot the bill. This isn’t typical among most newer owners thanks to the higher buy in’s to join MLS now but Sugarman brought low on the team and the league may have outpaced his pockets.

He definitely has long and short term goals besides the academy build but they aren’t known by the public.

Next: What has gone wrong and is the season salvageable?

To close, Dan Quandries asks – Why did you decide to detox, and not face these questions intoxicated?

Trust me, you don’t want these questions answered while I’m intoxicated. But the detox wasn’t only referring to me drinking away my sorrows. I also had to take a step back in order to clear my head to take a non-biased look at this team following last weekend. If I wrote anything on Sunday, I would have immediately regretted it on Monday.

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